Jugaad popularly referred to as ‘frugal-innovation’ has become quite a buzz-word. Borrowed from Indian colloquial for “a quick fix”, Jugaad is being touted world-wide as the “frugal and flexible approach to innovation”. HBR defines Jugaad as …
Which according to us is not quite the complete definition. Hailing from the land where this word originated and seeing it in play all around us, on a daily basis, for so many years, we do believe we understand the essence of the term and hope this post will help communicate it. You see a “quick-fix” is just that – a “quick-fix”. Sure it applies innovative thinking – a brilliant spark of inspiration that can help you overcome a problem and find a solution – but one that will hold just long enough till you can find a permanent solution to the problem. Or maybe even in situations where you don’t actually need a permanent solution.
Jugaad can be thought of as a survival tactic. It is sometimes even equated with street-smartness. It could be a safety pin to hold together a rip in your shirt, old gift-wrapper paper kept to be reused, a tape to fix a broken pair of spectacles. Does it work? Sure. Is it safe? Is it sustainable.
In the same vein, do examples like Tata Nano actually deserve to be filed under Innovation? Is it actually alright to make a car cheaper while compromising on the safety of the parts and technology used?
Here are a few pictures we illustrated as well as collected from our environment to depict examples of Jugaad to you. We leave it up to you to draw your own conclusions by the end of it.










Like we said, the above examples of Jugaad can be tested against measures like safety, sustainability, fulfillment of one’s desires or aspirations, to see whether Jugaad should actually qualify at the same level as Innovation. Is “good enough” enough? We welcome your comments.
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